New Delhi, Jul 17 (IANS): A team of researchers has removed more than 3,000 malicious contents, including fake domains, fake apps, and more, hosted publicly over the internet and targeting organisations across various sectors in 2022-23 in India, a new report said on Monday.

According to the cyber-security company CloudSEK, the BFSI, retail, and telecom sectors were the most targeted by scammers during this period.

Phishing attacks and other cybercrimes continue to increase, posing significant risks to organisations and individuals.

According to recent statistics, there have been a 56 per cent annual increase in phishing websites and a surge in cybercrime fraud, which has affected 45 per cent of Indian businesses.

Moreover, the report mentioned that in 2023, various industries faced significant challenges when it came to combating online threats such as phishing, infringement, and impersonation accounts.

Among these industries, the most targeted were BFSI (Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance) with a staggering 1458 instances, following closely behind was the retail sector with 526 cases, indicating the vulnerability of online shopping platforms.

The entertainment industry also experienced a substantial number of attacks, reaching 444 incidents. Other targeted industries included manufacturing (75), telecom (53), transportation/logistics (63), real estate (45), pharmaceuticals (25), hospitality (17), services (12), IT/SaaS (Information Technology/Software as a Service) (8), aviation (7), and others (4), the report said.

The researchers have so far taken down over 7,000 malicious content from the internet and have contributed towards making the internet a safer place for all.